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Using ArcGIS Pro 1.2 ModelBuilder I just created a couple of hundred shapefiles in a folder to which I had a Folder Connection in the Project pane, and thought it would be very easy to use the Project pane to multiple select them and then right-click to Delete them.

The multiple-select part is easy, but when I right-click to Delete I am presented with the Delete dialog and asked:

Are you sure that you want to permanently delete this item?

enter image description here

It is probably good that ArcGIS Pro double-checks before going ahead, but the problem is that it now requires me to re-confirm the deletion of a couple of hundred shapefiles one at a time, and offers me no way to bail out.

Is there an option to avoid this situation like configuring a checkbox on this dialog that says something like "Do this for the rest"?

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  • Did you try just deleting it directly from the file system?
    – Igal
    Commented Apr 6, 2016 at 12:27
  • @lgal The file system would display each of many shapefiles as 5-6 files and display many interspersed non-spatial files so would not be viable.
    – PolyGeo ♦
    Commented Apr 6, 2016 at 12:54
  • shapefiles? In Pro 1.3 I dont get an option to delete when multi-select shapefiles (single select I do). I do get an option to delete multi-selected fgdb-f; and asked to confirm to delete each one.
    – KHibma
    Commented Apr 6, 2016 at 13:10
  • Yeah but each shapefile is made out of 6 files with the same name, also it is always the same 6 files, should be easy to arange the files by name, or search for all type of files with *.shp etc.. Maybe im missig something
    – Igal
    Commented Apr 6, 2016 at 13:52
  • @lgal I think what you are missing is that a folder can have 100s of shapefiles (multiplied by however many files there are per shapefile) - let's just look at just two of them called Shp100.shp to Shp200.shp - and in the same folder place a text file called Shp150.txt. In Windows Explorer the text file appears between the shapefiles (hard to exclude from selection) but in the Project pane it appears below them (easy to exclude).
    – PolyGeo ♦
    Commented Apr 6, 2016 at 23:20

2 Answers 2

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+50

I don't see any options to control delete verification in ArcGIS Pro.

This Python script does the job of deleting shapefiles in bulk. You just need to add it to your project's toolbox and give it the "Folder" parameter:

import arcpy
projectFolder = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(0)
arcpy.env.workspace = projectFolder
shapefiles = arcpy.ListFeatureClasses("*.shp")
for shapefile in shapefiles:
    arcpy.Delete_management(shapefile)

This will delete ALL shapefiles in the folder you give it, because of this wildcard: ("*.shp")

If you have a filename convention, just modify the wildcard so you only delete the shapefiles you want. For example ("BigTrees*.shp") will delete BigTrees112.shp but not BigRocks45.shp.

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  • That's certainly a workaround for doing it, and I'm happy to award the bounty sooner rather than later, especially since I currently seem unable to reproduce the software behaviour that led to this question.
    – PolyGeo ♦
    Commented Apr 6, 2016 at 23:24
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Prompted by @KHibma's comment:

In Pro 1.3 I dont get an option to delete when multi-select shapefiles (single select I do). I do get an option to delete multi-selected fgdb-f; and asked to confirm to delete each one.

I ran a test on another project, at ArcGIS Pro 1.2, and as per the comment I was not offered a Delete option when multiple shapefiles were selected:

enter image description here

The problem that I saw previously seems to have been restricted to that particular project (which I no longer have).

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